Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Blawgs, Law Firm Marketing

Today's LexBlog Q & A is short but sweet, and features legal expert Walter Olson in the hot seat. Walter, who serves as a senior fellow at the New York City-based Manhattan Institute, also writes for the popular blogs Overlawyered and Point of Law.

In a brief e-mail interview conducted earlier this week, Walter discussed his past relationship with the legal blogosphere, the role blogging has played in his professional life and more.

1. Rob La Gatta: You’re credited as starting one of the oldest – if not the oldest – law blog on the web. What made you think starting a legal blog was a good move at a time when nobody else was doing so?

Walter Olson: I'm a writer, and the desire to write came first, before much thought as to who the audience would be. It started more or less as notes to myself, on topics I figured I might write about later. Also, while Overlawyered is a blog about law, its early readers were more policy types and journalists than lawyers.

2. Rob La Gatta: In many ways, blogs have indirectly created a new system of checks and balances, where people and businesses are held much more accountable simply because their moves are constantly being documented on the web. Do you believe blogs have the power to contribute to the “reform of the American civil justice system” that you say we need?

Walter Olson: The fact is, despite the obvious dangers in it, that blogs are great at shaming. No one wants to have the top page of Google hits on one's name be from having committed some ethical howler or taken some ridiculous position in a case.

If you haven't given up on the idea of self-policing by professionals (and I haven't) there is real hope that legal blogging will focus peer pressure and scrutiny on the underside of law practice in a way that the prospect of bar discipline often fails to do. This isn't just law, by the way – read the medical blogs and you'll see plenty of frank talk about the ethical dilemmas and temptations that doctors face. It's quite an education, actually.

3. Rob La Gatta: I notice that you’ve popped up in a wide range of print and television media outlets. Do you believe your blogging work has helped enhance your overall professional reputation?

Walter Olson: Sure. Reporters and their editors inevitably spend time on blogs, as do talk-show bookers. How could they not? They use Google constantly, and Google leads them to sites like mine. Most working reporters are also starved to see intelligent reactions to stories they've done. As a book author, I was already a media source, but it's not uncommon for reporters making their first call to say they feel they "know me already". It's blogging that does that.

4. Rob La Gatta: What is your take on the future of the legal blogosphere…will it continue to gather steam? Do you think that eventually, lawyers will need blogs to stay competitive?

Walter Olson: It continues to change and expand at an incredible pace; new bloggers can still make a name for themselves in months, even weeks. I would say that certain types of lawyers – in particular those who want to become well known with the press or among other lawyers, but are not already handling front-page cases – really should consider blogging if the aptitude is there.

5. Rob La Gatta: Since you’ve been blogging for quite some time, you’re probably one of the most well-suited individuals to answer this question: if you were to meet a lawyer just starting his or her first blog, what is the one most important bit of advice you’d offer them, and why?

Walter Olson: Find a niche (or two or three) that you'll never tire of writing about – very few of the good niches are taken. Then write short, pace yourself, and leave them wanting more.

Interested in hearing more? Check out some of our other featured guests...Walter is just the latest in our ongoing series of legal blog interviews for the LexBlog Q & A.

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On Friday, we launched part 1 of our LexBlog Q & A featuring Ernest Svenson (better known in the blogosphere as Ernie the Attorney), a pioneer of legal blogging who documented Hurricane Katrina from his hometown of New Orleans and provides insights on a range of topics in his blog.

This post features the rest of our interview, in which Ernie discusses why lawyers can benefit from showing their "human side" - and why law firms sometimes may crack down on them if displaying such humanity involves use of a blog.

 1. Rob La Gatta: You’ve said that people outside of the legal profession want to see the human side of lawyers, which is easily displayed through blogs. Can you see any potential harm that could come from lawyers displaying their “human side” to the general public?

Ernie the Attorney: No, I really don’t. I think that is one of the things that I was most intrigued by, and I still am. [...] You go to law school, and your way of thinking gets molded and changed, and you start to question things more and look for the underpinnings and analyze things. And then you come out and you’ve kind of been imbued with this appreciation and inclination towards a lot of formalism that most people in everyday life don’t have. And it’s very difficult, I think, for many lawyers – maybe most – to keep that part going, while at the same time switching gears quickly into informality (or just combining informality with formality)

I picked the name “Ernie the Attorney” because there was a magistrate in federal court, and she used to call me that. [And] she was one of those people who could be extremely formal and yet be completely down to earth at the same time: she’d see me and say, “Hey, Ernie the Attorney, how ya doing?” If she was picking a jury and the juror told her, “Oh, I’m not married…” she’d say, “A good looking man like you, not married? I can’t believe that.”

That’s not the kind of thinking that most lawyers do or feel comfortable doing. We, for whatever reason, have this sense that we have to be very distant. Kind of like doctors probably feel like they need to be distant from their patients because they’re going to do these invasive procedures and so forth, and so they have to create this distance. And I think that’s a completely wrong perception. I don’t think you have to create distance or be overly formal just because part of your professional role involves that to some extent.

Can’t you just do that part and then be a human being? I think the answer for me is, "Yeah, you can." I watch people do it. It’s totally possible, and in fact, I think it’s actually better, because it puts people at ease. If a lawyer’s job is to get their client to share confidences so that they can figure out how to help them, which one is going to be more likely to make that person want to share confidences with you? Being extremely formal, which people might interpret in the sense of being judgmental? Or is it more likely that they will tell you things that you need to know if you’re casual with them and make them feel at ease?

2. Rob La Gatta: So then why do you think so many big firms oppose the idea of being personal, and seem kind of resistant to that (if it's done through blogging)?

Ernie the Attorney: I don’t think they oppose the sense of being personal. [...] All corporations, all big firms, all large gatherings of people – and large can be more than 2 or 3, in some cases – have expectations about how the group members are supposed to behave. And then they have concerns about certain kinds of behavior getting out of line. I think with firms that still adhere to dress codes, or who say, “Well, lets go with casual Friday, and we don’t do any other days,” their concern is that people will take advantage. And that’s a legitimate concern: I think people can take advantage of being given freedom. But at the same time, that freedom is necessary and it’s important.

I don’t think firms don’t want people to have [freedom]; I think they just don’t want to see mistakes. I think the reason why [organizations] are overly controlling of individuals is because, in their mind, they’d rather not have any mistakes and shut everybody down than allow everybody to kind of try and experiment with it (and then have a few mistakes). It’s just not natural for organizations to allow small bands of people to experiment, because experiment means “try/fail/try/fail.” They don’t like that idea, because it’s just not part of the way organizations think. And yet, there’s a value to it.

[...]

Lawyers are very conservative. Nobody who is a lawyer fails to see that; it’s a conservative profession. It’s a profession dictated by tradition, by precedent, by analysis of what’s happened in the past to determine how to act in the future. It’s not the kind of profession that takes its hand off the handlebars and just says, “Well, lets see what happens.” So I think it was pretty natural that they were going to be circumspect about blogging, especially within the realm of large law firms and organizations.

Interested in hearing more? Check out some of our other featured guests...Ernie is just the latest in our ongoing series of legal blog interviews for the LexBlog Q & A.

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Continuing with our LexBlog Q & A interview series, today we feature some words of wisdom from Ernest Svenson, aka Ernie the Attorney, a New Orleans-based lawyer and long-time blogger.

In our phone interview earlier this week, Ernie and I spoke about his early introduction to legal blogging, why he believes big law firms may be resistant to blogs, and more.

Since the interview was quite extensive, I've decided to break it up into two posts. As a result, today part 1 is going up; on Monday, I'll launch part 2.

1. Rob La Gatta: Kevin has called you the “grandfather of lawyer blogs,” due to the amount of time you've been operating in the blogosphere. What first got you blogging at a time when not many other folks were doing so?

Ernie the Attorney: Sweet serendipity. A friend of mine had a software company; I had downloaded a trial version of [a blogging] program and liked it. Then he came to New Orleans, and he had a blog and showed me what it was – because he’s the sort of person who tools around and meets other people in the tech world – and I said, “Oh, this is really interesting.”

I realized I could try that for 30 days for free, and I played with it. I guess it resonated for me because I liked to write, and I in the past had been interested in the idea of publishing to the web, but I could never figure out how to set up the website...there were a lot of dots to connect. But with blogging, there weren’t any dots to connect anymore. It was just write and hit "post." So I just kept experimenting and playing with it, and it seemed like it was going to be something that was going to be incredibly useful, because – just like I felt that way about wanting to write but not being able to figure out how to do it – I knew that there were other people even less technologically inclined than I who probably were experiencing the same thing.

The legal profession, in my experience, had always been a place where people had ideas, and knew how to express themselves, knew how to parse information and how to digest it and absorb the key points. And so I was kind of surprised that there weren’t more lawyers doing it.

So, Denise Howell [and I] were the ones who saw each other doing it, and we traded e-mails, and then we started keeping track of lawyers who were blogging, even if they weren’t blogging about law (and if any lawyers were blogging back then, I’d say most of them weren’t blogging about the law).

2. Rob La Gatta: With your blog, it seems you can write about a range of topics and still maintain readers who come back and comment. Is this the way you’ve always blogged, or did you start with a specific focus and expand to rely more on your personality after you had an initial readership base?

Ernie the Attorney: I think I’ve always kind of written for myself. I wasn’t interested as much in writing about the law, except that when I started – as I mentioned – there weren’t that many people doing it. Then I gave myself the name Ernie the Attorney, so people figured out I was an attorney, [and] they would e-mail me or say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” [So] I kind of felt obliged to fill that role. It wasn’t a role that I really wanted to fill that much. So when Howard Bashman started his blog, and both Denise and I extolled it to a great extent, I was really happy, because I thought, “that’s exactly what somebody should be doing to cover the general bases.”

Then, more and more, people started jumping in to fill in niche areas, and Denise and I kept track of who was blogging in various areas. That was great, because I didn’t really want to write about the law, per se. I mean, I like doing it sometimes, but for the most part I’d rather just write about everything. I was a philosophy major, and my interest is…in everything.

3. Rob La Gatta: If a lawyer just starting his first blog were to approach you, what is the most important bit of advice you’d offer them, and why?

Ernie the Attorney: [T]he main thing that I would tell people (and I do tell them this) is [to] try to find your voice. And don’t be afraid to make “mistakes,” because part of the joy of blogging – and I find it to be something that’s joyful – is getting feedback from people, feeling like you’ve actually connected with people. This is not unique to blogging...any form of writing or expression can bring you that. But I think you get that sort of feeling and that feedback and that passion, you see it happen with a greater intensity when you allow yourself the freedom to explore and experiment.

When people ask me, “Well, why do you write your blog?”, the real answer is, I write it because it helps me figure out things. And that’s writing in general; I write so that I can figure things out. In the past I had tried to keep a journal, and I just didn’t care. It didn’t have the same intensity: only I was reading it, and I wasn’t editing it to say something in a particular way. Yet I was exploring thoughts that I had.

With blogging, it’s the same thing, except in exploring those thoughts, you have to think about them. You have to compress the ideas. You have to write it, you have to rewrite it, and so forth. A lot of times, I’ll look at something and have a much better sense of what I was thinking about - [after] I’ve edited it and written it and put it out there - than I would have if I had just mulled it over in my head, or written it quickly, or tried to write it to conform to what was safe.

Check back on Monday to see part 2, when Ernie will discuss why he thinks lawyers should show their "human side," and why large law firms are often resistant to allowing them to do so through blogs.

In the meantime, interested in hearing more? Check out some of our other featured guests...Ernie is just the latest in our ongoing series of legal blog interviews for the LexBlog Q & A.

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Today we follow up yesterday's LexBlog Q & A (in which we interviewed Connecticut employment blogger Dan Schwartz) with a very different interview subject: Ed Adams, editor and publisher of the American Bar Association's ABA Journal, who took over the position in 2006.

In our e-mail interview, Ed discusses his vision for the ABA Journal going into the job, responds to criticism regarding the Journal's Blawg 100, and more.

1. Rob La Gatta: When you took over as editor and publisher of the ABA Journal in 2006, what vision did you have for pushing the Journal forward? Now that it's almost 2008, do you think you've made significant progress?

Ed Adams: I and my new colleagues wanted to redesign the magazine – a process that was almost complete before I arrived. We now have covers that would look at home on any newsstand, more space for art and information graphics, and a cleaner, contemporary feel.

More than half the nation’s 1.1 million lawyers read ABA Journal every month. So we wanted to write more stories that appeal to every member of our audience, regardless of what niche of the profession they work in. Some of our recent cover stories are good examples of that: what happened behind the scenes at Saddam Hussein’s trial; Scott Turow’s essay about why the billable hour may be unethical; 101 tips, tricks and tools to make lawyers more productive and less stressed-out; and our special single-topic issue about the attorneys who have been on the legal frontlines of the War on Terror since 9/11.

Online, we wanted to create a site that was the place to come for breaking legal news. ABAJournal.com is updated with 25-50 new stories every business day, and has an archive of the full text of the magazine going back to 2004.

2. Rob La Gatta: When looking at the ABA Journal's website now compared to what it was a few years ago, one of the most noticeable difference is that today blogs represent a good chunk of the featured content. At what point did the Journal decide that legal blogs were a medium worth featuring, and what prompted this?

Ed Adams: When we were revamping the website this summer, we knew we wanted to incorporate blawgs because they’re an incredible resource for our readers. Often just minutes after ABAJournal.com posts a news story, lawyer/bloggers are providing their expert analysis of the latest legal developments.

We know from reader studies that most lawyers still wouldn’t know a blog if it tapped them on the shoulder. So we thought our blawg directory could introduce them to the phenomenon by helping them find the blawgs that interest them. It now has more than 1,500 listings in dozens of practice areas, every state in the nation, and almost every law school.

3. Rob La Gatta: It's no secret that most big newspapers are losing print revenues and being forced to become more competitive online. Has the ABA Journal been faced with similar problems? Do you think that focusing on the Journal's online presence is the most important way to keep readers coming in?

Ed Adams: Our advertisers are smart; they realize that online and print are not an either/or proposition. There’s still no better way to communicate a brand than through an ad in a glossy magazine. But when an advertiser wants to focus on a call to action, online makes perfect sense. That’s why we’ve seen double-digit ad revenue growth in both print and online simultaneously.

Readers are telling us that online doesn’t replace print. They look for different kinds of information from the two mediums. Long trend stories and profiles work better in print, where the reader can hold the story in their hands. But nothing delivers breaking legal news better than the Web.

4. Rob La Gatta: How would you respond to the criticism that the ABA Journal's Blawg 100 doesn't do justice to the many niche focused blogs operating within the legal blogosphere? Do you personally believe that there are 100 law blogs that are definitively the best?

Ed Adams: Obviously, I think one can assemble a list of the 100 best blawgs – that’s what we did. Just as obviously, everyone’s list of the 100 best would be different from everyone else’s. And we had plenty of “niche” blawgs on our list, particularly in the Black Letter Law category.

The more interesting criticism, I think, is the notion that lists of great blawgs somehow will reduce traffic to niche blawgs, or make it harder to find them. Quite the contrary, I think. Lawyers will check out the top blogs, and in the process, stumble across blawgs that may not be as objectively great, but are great for them.

5. Rob La Gatta: 2008 is just around the corner. Do you have any big plans for the ABA Journal in the coming year, and if so, what can you tell us about them?

Ed Adams: We’ve got huge plans. And you’ll just have to wait and see.

Interested in hearing more? Check out some of our other featured guests...Ed is just the latest in our ongoing series of legal blog interviews for the LexBlog Q & A.

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Today we return once again to the LexBlog Q & A interview feature, this time profiling Stamford, Connecticut-based lawyer Daniel Schwartz.

Dan, who runs the Connecticut Employment Law Blog and is a partner in the Labor & Employment practice at Epstein Becker & Green, updates his blog with new content almost every day of the work week. In a phone interview this morning, I spoke with Dan about how he manages to blog so often, his tricks for increasing blog traffic, and how media coverage of the blog has impacted his reputation at the office.

1. Rob La Gatta: To start, lets talk about your blogging routine: you post a lot, and your updates are often lengthy. Do you schedule time each day to blog, and do you map out in advance what issues you will cover? Or is it something you don’t decide until you sit down in front of the computer.

Daniel Schwartz: I try to do it either in the evenings and schedule the post for the following morning, or I try to do it first thing in the morning, before the phones start ringing and clients start e-mailing. Typically what I’ll do is, during the day, I may star some stories from Google Reader to follow up on, or check the court dockets to see if any new decision has come down. Sometimes there’s a pressing matter where you want to update it immediately. But I try to reserve the time for both the beginning and end of the workday.

I end up updating really every business day. I’ve decided not to post on weekends, because no one really reads it [then].

2.Rob La Gatta: All lawyers are experts in their respective fields, but only so many of them can be recognized as such. Do you believe blogging is an effective method for establishing yourself as a recognized expert in employment law?

Daniel Schwartz: I do. I think it is an effective way to essentially demonstrate your expertise to people, instead of telling them that you’re an expert. I think that when you’re able to write about a particular subject matter in particular detail, people tend to respect that much more than [if you are] just pounding on your chest and proclaiming to the world, ‘I am the greatest!’

I’ve tried to make it a point of picking out topics that I find of interest and that I think others might, and getting into a bit of detail that can explain a subject a little more – and may ultimately provide the answers to sort of general questions that people out there might have.

3.Rob La Gatta: I noticed on the about page of your blog, you specifically mention that reader participation – through comments, e-mails, etc – was crucial to the blog's long-term success. Have you gotten this type of response from readers so far?

Daniel Schwartz: I have. It really is a conversation...[you are] entering into a dialogue. I’ve made an effort to reach out to other blogs and comment on them, which in turn has those people look[ing] at my blog and comment as well. From that sense, it’s really been a terrific help in spreading the word and discussing subjects in more detail.

Ultimately, other blogs – such as Above the Law or Point of Law – have picked up on my employment law topics, which may reach a larger audience [because of] it. And I’ve also gotten calls from prospective clients and newspaper reporters that would not have otherwise found me.

4.Rob La Gatta: Yes, about that: I noticed that you’ve recently generated some respectable media exposure. Has this had any impact on how you are received by other lawyers within the firm? Are you given any voice in discussions on marketing issues?

Daniel Schwartz: In fact, I’ve been tasked within my firm – based on the success that we’ve had with the blog – [to look] at other blogs that the firm or other attorneys within my firm can do, and at specific targeted areas where we can provide some additional insight and background, given our involvement in the field.

I think, as with any larger firm, there is always reluctance to try something new. But they have been supportive throughout, and every time the blog gets mentioned in the media, much like it would for other attorneys, the firm has posted it – both internally and externally. It shows the success that the blog can have, of getting referenced in the media and building your word of mouth.

5. Rob La Gatta: f you were to meet a lawyer just starting his or her first blog, what is the single most important bit of advice you’d offer them? Why?

Daniel Schwartz: I think you need to want to do a blog, and I think you need to enjoy doing a blog.

I have found that blogging fits within the marketing and overall approach that I want to take to my practice. It gives me an outlet to do some writing, and it gives me an excuse to keep up on recent developments in the law. I think we all have limits on our time, and I end up sometimes blogging from home with my kids sitting next to me, on my laptop. But I view it as something I enjoy doing rather than as work, and I think if you want to do a blog, you need to do it for the right reasons. It’s not a one shot endeavor; it’s a work in progress that you build on.

Ultimately, I can look back on this, and I’ve got dozens and dozens of articles on various subjects that are a reference, not only to people out there, but to myself as well.

That's it for today's interview. Know someone you think lawyers might be interested in hearing from? Drop me their name in an e-mail and we'll see if we can sit them down for a LexBlog Q & A.

Meanwhile, don't forget to check out our past legal blog interviews.

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Today's LexBlog Q & A features a celebrity from the legal blogosphere, a man who needs no introduction: David Lat, Editor-in-Chief of the prominent legal tabloid Above The Law. Above The Law offers a constant flow of news and gossip, often presented with a humorous edge, about developments in the legal world.

I spoke with David over the phone last week about his blog's popularity, the challenges he's faced getting the site to where it is today and more.

1. Rob La Gatta: What do you think has made Above The Law so popular? Did you believe it would become so big when you launched it?

David Lat: I don’t think I had an idea that it would become quite as popular as it has, although I did think that it was going to attract a significant readership – which is why I had the idea for doing a site of this nature. There were sites that existed at the time for other industries and other professions, and I just thought that lawyers love to gossip, they love to talk about what’s going on in their field, and I thought that there was a place for that.

2. Rob La Gatta: Do you think that Above The Law has had any impact on how lawyers are perceived by the general public?

David Lat: To be honest, I’m not so sure about that, partly because most of our readers are lawyers. Not all of them; we did a reader survey once, and I think maybe we have somewhere between 10 and 20 percent who are not lawyers (although most of those people are married to lawyers or thinking about going to law school or have some connection to the profession). But since most of the readers are [lawyers], it is somewhat of a niche site, and so I’m not quite sure whether it’s had an impact.

But you never can tell. I think that the site does try to bring to light the more fun and quirky aspects of what’s often viewed as a pretty staid and conservative profession. So, it could be a good thing – or not, to the extent that it also exposes lawyers and judges who embarrass themselves. But I’m just here to write…other people can sort things out.

3. Rob La Gatta: By the way you’re producing this, you’ve pretty much independently created a powerful magazine on the web. Have you faced any big challenges along the way?

David Lat: I think one challenge that I’m constantly dealing with is really an issue of tone. The site is styled as a legal tabloid…it is designed to be irreverent. But on the other hand, lawyers – being lawyers – tend to be more conservative in their sensibilities than a lot of other people. So a lot of times, you’re trying to walk the fine line between provoking the readers but not alienating them.

A second challenge – and it’s really a good challenge to have – is also figuring out how to deal with user generated content in the form of reader comments. We have a very vocal group of commenters, and a lot of them have great things to say that are very insightful or very funny. But sometimes they do cross the line, and so trying to figure out how to harness that energy – without getting burned by some of the less pleasant aspects of commenting – is a challenge for a site like this.

I had no idea that it would reach a point where a single post would get hundreds of comments. But like I said, it’s a good problem to have.

3a. Rob La Gatta: Do you have systems in place that you use to control what’s going on in the comments section?

David Lat: We do have the ability to moderate comments, and we also have the ability to block certain IP addresses from commenting. I tend not to do it very much, because I don’t want to inhibit legitimate comments. But for a while, we tried to have absolutely no moderation, and that just proved untenable.

In the next couple of months, we’re probably going to be doing a redesign of the site. We haven’t figured this out definitively, but we are probably going to change the approach to commenters. We may require people to register before they comment, so that might change things; I think maybe people would feel a greater sense of accountability for their comments. But that is still sort of a work-in-progress.

4. Rob La Gatta: Do you think that if you were practicing law today, you would have a blog?

David Lat: (laughs) Probably not. You know, I can write from the luxury of someone who is no longer practicing. It’s hard, because it is a pretty conservative profession, and people can get very easily bent out of shape. A lot of the lawyers I know, they’re even nervous about having a Facebook page, to say nothing of a blog.

I think that’s why so many leading legal bloggers are academics, especially tenured academics, because they can voice their opinions freely. But people who work for law firms are much less likely to have blogs, just because they’re worried about alienating clients, or running afoul of legal ethics rules. It can be a real minefield.

4a. Rob La Gatta: Do you think those are legitimate concerns to have, or is it just paranoia?

David Lat: I think it’s a little bit of both. I think that there are some people who can get themselves in trouble with blogs, but on the other hand, I think lawyers tend to be very overcautious (especially lawyers who have interest in political or judicial office someday). And so they probably don’t even say as much as they could.

But I can understand why they would want to err on the side of caution. There are stories. You hear about summer associates who get in trouble for having blogs; there was that story about the doctor who was on trial and he was blogging about the case, and then it came to light during the case…so in the legal context, blogs can sometimes get people into some amount of hot water.

5. Rob La Gatta: Where do you see this going? Do you have a goal you’re working towards, or are you just going to keep going and take whatever is thrown at you?

David Lat: Yeah, pretty much…as you were alluding to earlier, I would like to make it even more like a magazine, in the sense that I would like to bring in some more outside contributors [and] have some sort of regular columns on specific topics (and I’ve been talking to people about that, but it’s hard to get people to focus because everyone is just so busy). But I would like to bring in some different voices, and have an even better mix of content on the site.

I do have some goals for the future, and we’re going to be doing this redesign, so I think there’s even more that we can do. But basically, I’m pretty happy with how things are now, and I’m quite content to keep on going.

That's it for the LexBlog Q & A feature until after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, readers.

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For today's LexBlog Q & A, I exchanged e-mails with Paul Caron, currently serving as Charles Hartsock Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

In addition to his academic duties, Paul writes content for his TaxProf Blog and serves as Editor-in-Chief for Law Professor Blogs, a network of blogs authored by law professors around the country.

1. Rob La Gatta: What type of work does being Editor-in-Chief at Law Professor Blogs entail, and what would you say is the biggest challenge you've faced so far in this position?

Paul Caron: My main job is to recruit editors to start blogs in other areas of law patterned after TaxProf Blog. We now have approximately 50 blogs and 100 editors. The biggest challenge is to find folks who are both leaders in their fields and suited [with the] talent and temperament to be bloggers.

2. Rob La Gatta: Since you starting watching the blogosphere, do you believe blogs have played a role in how law professors teach or publish their ideas? Can blogging have a positive impact on a law professor's reputation?

Paul Caron: Blogs have had a profound impact on both law teaching and legal scholarship. Shameless plug: the Washington University Law Review has just published the papers from the symposium we held at Harvard Law School in April 2006, Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship, 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1025-1261 (2006). The papers and commentary talk in detail about the impact of blogs on legal scholarship.

3. Rob La Gatta: Blogs have obviously made communication between lawyers around the country much easier. Do you believe that these new opportunities - which can ultimately result in new forms of collaboration between lawyers - are advancing society's overall knowledge of the law?

Paul Caron: Absolutely. My friend and co-blogger Doug Berman at Ohio State calls this "scholarship in action." Blogs empower law professors to leave the ivory tower and inject their ideas immediately into the legal community, rather than wait years until a law review article is written and published.

4. Rob La Gatta: Some critics of blogs argue that they are not as effective or legitimate as law review journals because they are not peer reviewed; blog defenders, meanwhile, believe that the peer review is instantaneous - people are reading what you write, and if it isn't accurate, it will be criticized (or at the very least, ignored). What position do you take on this? Do you believe blogs are peer reviewed?

Paul Caron: It is not an either/or proposition. As Larry Solum has pointed out, blogs are merely a mechanism (like law reviews) for distributing scholarly ideas. But blogs permit law professors to have a more immediate impact and in many cases shape the development of the law, which can then be reinforced through the publication of law reviews.

Our conference on the impact of blogs on legal scholarship offers a great example. The event was held in April 2006, and attracted a lot of attention in the blogosphere. Those who could not attend the event at Harvard could watch the webcast and read the commentary of those who live-blogged the conference. And the papers were made available on the Internet. The papers were finally published this month by the Washington University Law Review - over 18 months later!

As you know, most law reviews are student-edited and thus not peer-reviewed. But blog posts are subject to searching, immediate peer-review. If you say something that is not right, there is a phalanx of bloggers ready and willing to tell you.

5. Rob La Gatta: As legal blogs continue to gain popularity, what do you think will happen to traditional law reviews?

Paul Caron: Law reviews have already adjusted. Many of the top law reviews have launched on-line supplements to compete with the immediacy of blogs. Examples include:

• University of Connecticut (CONNtemplations)
• Harvard University (Forum)
• University of Michigan (First Impressions)
• Northwestern University (Colloquy)
• University of Southern California (Postscript)
• University of Texas (See Also)
• University of Illinois (Law Forum)
• University of Pennsylvania (PENNumbra)
• University of Virginia (In Brief)
• Yale University (Pocket Part)

And more and more law reviews are making their articles immediately available for free on their websites. Just this week, the Concurring Opinions blog announced a "Law Review Table of Contents Project" through which law reviews will post links to articles as they are published.

That does it for today's LexBlog Q & A. Keep checking back for more updates to this ongoing series. Got somebody you think we should interview who blogging lawyers might be interested in hearing from? Drop me a line.

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Today we return with another LexBlog Q & A (formerly Five Questions), this time featuring web personalization guru Greg Linden. Greg developed the engine that drives Amazon.com's recommendation system and, more recently (in 2004) founded Findory.com. After Kevin recently wrote about Findory's impending closure, I got in touch with Greg for a brief e-mail interview regarding his experience with web personalization.

1. Rob La Gatta: By reading your blog, it is clear that web personalization is your passion. What was it that drew you to the idea of personalization in the first place, and when did this happen?

Greg Linden: What I love about personalization is that it can help you find things you would not have found on your own. If you do not know what you want, if you do not know something might exist, you cannot easily search for it.

Back in the early days of Amazon, they only sold books. Even then, there were millions of books in its catalog and new ones coming out every day, so many that it was impossible to know about all of them or even most of them. The appeal of personalization for me back then was that it would help people find books – find knowledge – that they otherwise may have never seen.

2. Rob La Gatta: In your post on the Findory site detailing its closure, you end by saying that you "continue to believe that the future will be personalized." Where do you see personalized web content five years from now?

Greg Linden: We are all subject to a deluge of information in our daily lives. We are saturated in it and overwhelmed by it. We need filters that focus our attention. We need help to process the information flooding [toward] us.

In a world of personalized information, search engines would learn from your behavior, determine what you think is relevant and interesting, and reorder search results to focus in on what you need. Communication including e-mails, instant messages and text messages would be prioritized by importance of the contact and the cost of an interruption. News would be customized to your needs and interests, a stream of knowledge about current events built just for you. Advertising would be helpful, useful and relevant, only showing products and services you want to know about.

I think personalized information is inevitable. The need is great. The benefits are obvious. The rewards are large. It is inescapable: the future will be personalized.

3. Rob La Gatta: Being based out of a technology hub like Seattle, have you found that people here are more accepting (and trusting) of web personalization – everything from Netflix recommendations to the engine that drove Findory – than in other parts of the country/world where the Internet may not play as important a role in day-to-day life?

Greg Linden: No, I do not think Seattle is different in that respect. Personalization needs to be useful to be accepted. If it is useful, people want it and trust it. If it is not useful, people find it annoying and intrusive. The key is to focus on helping people find what they need. When personalization does that, people like it.

4. Rob La Gatta: When it comes to advertising, personalization is valuable because nobody wants to see ads for things that don't interest them. Do you believe traditional mediums (such as newspapers and magazines) will be able to adapt to this? Or will everything – content and ads alike – move to online, where it is tailored exclusively to the interests of the consumer?

Greg Linden: I do not think everything will move online, no, but online is the primary area of growth for newspapers and magazines.

Online offers an interesting opportunity for newspapers. No longer is it necessary to print a single front page that everyone sees. Online, the constraints of the printing process are gone. Everyone can see different content.

This opens [opportunities] that only have begun to be explored where newspapers can show different content and different ads to each reader based on the needs and interests of that person. Online, we can build a newspaper just for you.

5. Rob La Gatta: In your initial announcement detailing Findory's demise ["Findory rides into the sunset," 1/14/07] you said that you plan to spend your free time not with another venture, but with family and friends. Are you still on that track, or can we expect to see something new from you in the coming months?

Greg Linden: I have no firm plans yet. I am exploring several opportunities, but cannot say anything specific.

Greg has volunteered to answer any other questions, but rather than ask those myself, I'd like to see what readers are wondering. Do you have a question for Greg Linden? Post them in the comments. I'll select three or four of the best and send them to Greg, so we can post a follow-up.

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Today's update to the LexBlog Q & A, formerly known as Five Questions, is a dispatch from our usual approach. Though the subject is a LexBlog client (Bill Marler, the Seattle-based food safety lawyer who operates a group of blogs that includes his own Marler Blog), this time we've used YouTube. Click below to learn how Bill has grown to be one of the most effective law bloggers in the country.

My questions may be a bit hard to hear (I'll pack another mic next time), so here's what I asked.

• Will you describe your first experience writing for a blog?
• How do you think your writing voice has changed from when you started to where you are now?
• Do you have a specific routine for blogging? Where do you write best - is it at home? In the office?
• If you were to offer one bit of advice to a lawyer who was just starting their first blog, what would it be?

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